Category: 2016 President

As the final countdown begins for the close of polls in Iowa, thousands of volunteers are spread out across the state knocking on doors, collecting absentee ballots and dragging every last person they can get to the polls. A big part of Democrats’ GOTV efforts come from organized labor, and AFSCME is providing a good chunk of that, both for Hillary Clinton and down-ballot legislative candidates. AFSCME’s Iowa operation has 340 volunteers working around Iowa to turn out voters and their members. They’ve focused in on getting their members to cast their ballots early; 59% of their Iowa membership has already […]

Are we done yet? The closer we’ve gotten to the election, the longer every day seems to drag on, so who knows how today will feel. At this point, everyone is emotionally exhausted, from the candidates to the campaign staff to the volunteers to the voters. I’ve been trying to think of some interesting way to wrap this whole election coverage up, but honestly I’ve covered most of the major themes I’ve wanted to. There’s still several stories that I wanted to write that I never got around to, and my brain has simply been mush the past week so […]

When Barack Obama won Iowa in 2008 and 2012, college students were a key part of his winning coalition, turning out at record rates. For Hillary Clinton to overcome Iowa’s Trump-trending voter base, she’ll need to at least come close to generating the same turnout among young students. She’ll also have to tamp down third party defections from young progressives who earlier backed Bernie Sanders. Sanders himself is returning to Iowa for an extensive two-day swing today and tomorrow, hitting up each of the state’s three largest public universities. His task is to persuade holdout and skeptical voters, as well as motivate the […]

The Iowa Secretary of State’s office released the new voter registration totals this morning. Iowa gained 36,809 new registered voters in the month of October. There were 10,296 new registered Democrats, 9,622 new registered Republicans and 15,112 new registered No Party voters. The advantage of the new No Party voters shouldn’t come as a surprise, as the trend particularly with young voters is to not align themselves with a specific party. Most of the new registrations came in counties with college campuses. Registering new voters is typically not a major focus of Iowa campaigns, or at least not compared to […]

One week to go, finally. We’re at the point of the campaign cycle in Iowa where campaigns cease signing up new people for absentee ballots and go solely into ballot chase and GOTV mode. The increases in requested ballots in the daily totals from here on out will be mostly from people who voted in-person that day. For mail absentee ballots, while they can be requested as late as Friday, there’s just not enough time to reliably get them sent out and returned. Let’s take another in-depth look at the early vote numbers, as we’re to the point where many […]

The final days of the 2016 campaign are closing out ugly in Iowa, and not just in how candidates attack each other. An act of homophobic vandalism against a gay candidate in Waterloo and racist fliers on the campuses of Iowa State University and the University of Iowa were reminders that Iowa politics isn’t quite what it used to be. Chris Schwartz, Democratic candidate for Black Hawk Board of Supervisors, woke up Thursday morning to find his political yard signs and home vandalized. “I was heading out this morning at about 9am to take my recycling to the curb when I first noticed that signs […]

After weeks of national controversy led by Donald Trump over supposed vote rigging and voter fraud, an actual case of voter fraud occurred in Iowa. It was committed by a Trump supporter. Terri Rote was one of three people in Polk County reported to the police by the Polk County Auditor’s office for voting twice in the November election. Rote was the only one arrested so far, and told Iowa Public Radio that she decided in “the spur of the moment” to vote a second time at a satellite voting location because she feared her original ballot would be switched to Hillary Clinton […]

Finally, someone has polled Iowa again. It had been 21 days since a highly credible poll had surveyed the state, but a new Quinnipiac Poll released this afternoon confirmed what many on the ground have thought: it’s all tied up. Literally, exactly tied. Both Clinton and Trump stand at 44% in the new poll, with Gary Johnson coming in with 4% of likely voters’ support. Many had wondered where the Iowa race would stand after the Access Hollywood tape and three debates played out. The state has been trending much more Republican than usual this year, so even while Arizona […]

Policy issues have not always enjoyed center stage in 2016’s divisive and wild election, and one major area that’s particularly been left out is K-12 public education. While much of school funding gets determined at the state level, President Bush’s No Child Left Behind Act had a massive impact on public education from the federal level. The next president will likely continue President Obama’s reform of that program, as well as work to address the inequality of educational opportunity in the country. The country’s largest educator organizations have endorsed Hillary Clinton, who has laid out considerably more in-depth education policy […]

It’s crunch time for Democrats’ and Republicans’ early vote efforts in Iowa. With just two and a half weeks left until Election Day, campaigns are scrambling to pick up absentee ballots and turn voters out to early voting locations. There’s plenty of numbers to pore over, so let’s get right into it. First off, a check on the statewide numbers of absentee requests compared to this time in 2012: Requests Party Today Then % Diff Democrat 182,064 217,964 84% Republican 150,169 147,112 102% No Party 88,673 112,131 79% And now a look at the statewide numbers of who has already voted compared […]